


shelter from the storm

by pyrrhlc



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Armageddon, listen. they're married ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 11:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: The corners of Aziraphale’s mouth twitch up, just slightly – that little private smile he does whenever he thinks Crowley isn’t looking. But Crowley has hardly stopped looking at him ever since the Armageddon That Wasn’t. They just aren’t talking about it, that’s all.In which Crowley gives Aziraphale a present.





	shelter from the storm

**Author's Note:**

> _Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost_   
>  _I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed_

There is nothing, Crowley thinks, sinking into the couch by Aziraphale’s side, _nothing_ greater than this. Nowhere will ever feel as at home at this.

He has wondered for years – no, _centuries_ – how to say it best. In the end, as per most things Crowley does, he decides to just run with it.

“What’s this, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, as Crowley hands him the box. Against all better Hellish judgement, Crowley answers him. He is not nervous, he assures himself. Demons cannot be nervous.

“It’s a presssent,” he hisses, on purpose, because he has not worried about this, not for centuries, not for millennia, not at all. “For you.”

“Oh! How kind of you.” Crowley watches as Aziraphale tears carefully into the tissue paper, silently screaming a little because _dammit, angel, that is not what wrapping paper is_ for. It can be frustrating, yes, and maybe that’s why he came up with it, in an official capacity, but really it’s just… well, it’s _fun._

Aziraphale has always been careful, Crowley reminds himself. He tries not to vibrate out of his skin as the former lifts a box out of a small nest of tissue paper, admiring it carefully before saying, “It’s not a book, is it?”

The tone is not disappointed, but curious. Crowley rolls his eyes anyway. “No, not a book. Don’t you have enough of those already?” He clicks his fingers to vanish the tissue paper, which Aziraphale is fondling carefully, like that’s the real present, somehow, the mere abstract idea of a gift. “Come on, open it already.”

“Yes, all right,” Aziraphale says, softly, too fondly for Crowley’s poor heart. He opens the box, looks inside, smiles across at him. “Why, it’s a plant!”

Crowley smiles thinly in a way that’s meant to come across as sarcastic, but isn’t really, because being smitten doesn’t work like that. “Yes, it’s a plant,” he answers, watching Aziraphale as he carefully plucks it from the box, holding the terracotta pot in his hands like it’s more precious than gold. The funny feeling he’s been carrying around in his chest for the past six thousand years grows a little more pertinent; like it’s waiting for him to do something about it, which he is, sort of. “Humans call them succulents,” he adds helpfully. Aziraphale beams.

“It’s lovely,” he murmurs, turning the pot in his hand, apparently trying to admire it from every angle. As if on impulse, it sprouts a single flower, blooming in tune with the angel’s gentle sounds of admiration. Crowley blinks.

(He hadn’t had it in him, to terrify this one into a state of perfection, but then perhaps he hadn’t needed to. It would grow, just like they would, without intervention, perfectly. More than perfectly, if Aziraphale didn’t soon stop making those crooning noises.)

“It’s only a plant, you know.” he says, as Aziraphale stands up to make a place for it, alongside a pile of dog-eared Shakespeare paperbacks in the windowsill. He can’t help his smile as the angel miracles up a watering can. Hopefully the glasses contain most of it – that look of love that he can’t seem to stop exhibiting, whenever he looks on _this_ , on home, on his angel’s perfect face. “They don’t like too much water,” he adds, warningly. The corners of Aziraphale’s mouth twitch up, just slightly – that little private smile he does whenever he thinks Crowley isn’t looking. But Crowley has hardly stopped looking at him ever since the Armageddon That Wasn’t. They just aren’t talking about it, that’s all.

“Very well,” Aziraphale says, like it’s the answer to more than just Crowley’s plant suggestions. He looks down at the watering can in his hands, allows it to evaporate. He keeps stealing little glances at the plant, then at Crowley, and then back again and visa versa. “Thank you, Crowley.” His eyebrows furrow. “Pity you don’t read. I could have given you a book in return.”

“You wouldn’t’ve,” Crowley counters, good-naturedly. He takes off his glasses, holds them for a minute in his hand as he looks across at Aziraphale. “You love them all too much. All these” – he waves his arm around vaguely – “things. Weird bibles and manuscripts and all the rest of it. Bloody books of prophecy. Ever sold any, angel?”

“Well, on occasion, one might,” Aziraphale admits, looking bashful. “But I do – I do love them, yes.”

He sits down beside him again, takes Crowley’s glasses from his hands almost absent-mindedly as the demon clicks the frames together, back and forth, back and forth. Not nervous at all, in the slightest, because nothing is happening. He is not in love, not admiring Aziraphale, none of that. He is not looking, until he is.

He is unbearably perfect, and soft, and lovely, Crowley thinks. He watches Aziraphale’s eyes flicker from his slitted pupils to the glasses, almost like he’s nervous too. But he doesn’t stop smiling.

“Tell me why you wear these indoors again?” he asks, and Crowley’s breath hitches in a way that it has no business doing, because he has no need to breathe, no need for real lungs. He’s worried for a moment that’s he’s losing it, and then he forgets again, falls again. Hoping to land in Aziraphale’s grace as he says, as carelessly as he can manage: “Don’t want to give too much away, angel.”

“Whoever to?” Aziraphale says, looking around the shop in the same way he’d looked around the park when Crowley had suggested killing the Antichrist to prevent Armageddon. He’d known exactly what Crowley had meant then, too. “My dear, we’re the only ones in the shop.”

“Mm,” Crowley says, sitting up and looking around, like he hadn’t noticed. “Are we? Good.” He looks sideways at Aziraphale, raises a hand to brush against his cheek, fingers trembling. Aziraphale trembles with him, meets Crowley in the middle, their foreheads pressed together, noses touching. Crowley _aches_.

“I really want to kiss you, angel—” he starts, hardly getting to the end of the sentence before Aziraphale presses his lips against his, too suddenly at first, like he’s never done it before. They knock their heads together and laugh like two love-drunk teenagers, try again. Crowley holds him as tenderly as he has ever held anything, threading his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, tracing his jawline, shivering with it. He thinks of stars.

“Really,” Aziraphale gets out between kisses, his face shining as he looks on Crowley in a way that is plainly unfair. “You could have said it without the plant.” Crowley laughs into his collar, happy and warm in a familiar place. He kisses him again.

“But it reminded me of you,” he says softly, clinging to him, to everything this world has given him. “It was so perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> crowley is soft af thank u for coming to my ted talk
> 
> kudos/comments always appreciated! makes me go :)


End file.
